


The Ignorence of John Winchester

by litra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Headcanon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1920360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting possessed by an archangel isn't something that can really be forgotten, even with magic. John made a lot of hard choices, but when the powers that be are determined to end the world, sometimes you have to make a choice out of a lack of choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ignorence of John Winchester

**Author's Note:**

> This is my headcannon for John Winchester. A lot of john hate has been showing up on my tumblr so I had to write something, because feeeeeelings.  
> I see John Winchesters life as something like a Greek tragedy. He has no real options and the gods are pulling him one way then the other. Everyone around him ends up dead or broken. There’s nothing he can do about it but he has to try anyway.
> 
> Also this was written in kind of a rush so it's unbetad.

There are things that no amount of blood, tears or magic can make a man forget. John Winchester knew the fate his boys were being prepared for. How could he not when Michael, the archangel himself had come down from heaven on high to possess him. Michael hadn't exactly bothered to hide any of it. Maybe it just hadn't occurred to him. After all, what could one lowly human do to stop the end of the world, even if the human in question did come from one of the bloodlines.

And there had been the forget me magic.

So instead of being fully aware from the start, the knowledge was relegated to dreams and deja-vu. All those little things that couldn't possibly be real, couldn't possibly mean what he thought they did. For four years.

Then his wife was dying in flames on the ceiling. And a part of him had known it was going to happen. It was that part of him that remembered a tall man with shaggy hair and made sure the baby got into Dean’s arms.

He knew Mary was gone. He knew it like knew how to load his gun, like he knew the sound of the impala. Like he knew that Dean would make it safely out of the house with Sam in his arms, but even then it could already be too late. None of it stopped him from trying to save the woman he loved.

When he was pulled, burned and blackened from the wreckage of the house, he could no longer deny what he knew. That hadn't automatically torn down the wall in his head but with the help of Missouri he’d put his mind in order.

Michael had known quite a bit about the situation. He was one of the grand architects plotting out the end of the world. Michael had led one of Lucifer’s followers to a crack in the worlds, where the yellow eyed son of a bitch had learned just enough to set things in motion. And now….

Now his youngest son was going to be fighting an uphill battle for his soul every day for the rest of his life. And his eldest...Dean. If everything went perfectly. If all the dominoes fell perfectly in place. He’d kill his brother with his own hands. And that wasn't even mentioning the whole vessel situation. John had had to endure it for less than ten minutes and it had been like standing in the center of a supernova. He wouldn't put his boys through that, not f it could be stopped.

And it could still be stopped, that was the thing.

The yellow eyed demon was the key to it. Oh, he may have been just a tool in the larger scheme of things, but he was the one who would start that first stone rolling. He was, in fact, the only one in a position to do so. Arrogance maybe, on the part of the grand puppeteers.

Not that he wasn't strong. He himself had backups for every plan. The blood, the other children…. It would be anything but easy. Still, if he was killed, if his operations were torn down, it would take a generation at least, to set everything up again. It might not have been much of a reprieve but it would keep his boys out of the firing line.

So John made a plan.

First he needed knowledge. He’d gleaned a lot from Michael but not all he would need. Michael hadn't been interested in killing the demon. So he found some hunters and learned what they could teach him.

It was less than four months after the fire when John realized it wasn't enough.

The demon showed up at the daycare center where he’d left Dean and little Sammy. A new volunteer who gave Sam a bottle and whispered songs in Sammy’s ears in an infernal language that John only recognized because of his new contacts.

She wouldn't hurt him. John knew that wasn't her orders, after all, Sam was special. That didn't stop him from fumbling through enough of an exorcism to make her run. He crossed two state lines in as many days and the demons still found them a week later.

John started to fear for Dean. Sam they wouldn't hurt, only twist into a shape that suited them, but Dean could very easily turn into a threat. But what could he do? Once Dean started school he’d be vulnerable, and even if John kept Sam with him, he couldn't protect him every minute. Not if he wanted to stop the demon.

John kept them moving, warding them with salt and chalked symbols on the back of motel room doors. He spent five months at Bobby Singer’s salvage yard slowly taking apart and rebuilding the Impala to be completely untraceable by magic of any kind.

That first year was the hardest, full of long nights and close calls. By the time Dean turned six John had as much experience as any hunter in the states, and he hadn't gone looking for a single case. Dean never realized and Sam would certainly never learn, that there had been 23 attempts to kill Dean, or at least get him out of the way, and an extra 9 attempts to whisk Sam off in the night. John couldn't let it go on like this, one of these days he’d get sloppy and one or both of his boys would be gone.

Dean’s present that year was the truth, or at least as much of it as John could tell him.  The monsters under the bed and the fact that John fought them. Why the salt lines and the symbols worked, and most of all, how he should always, always, take care of Sam.

After all. Dean was the one with the ability to get out of anything, have fate always somehow fall his way. Dean never realized that the way he got away with everything wasn't necessarily an inborn trait. He’d pick a fight with three other boys all twice his size and win. And yes, he was a better fighter but he still should have been roughed up. only it never turned out that way, because Mary had been right. He had angels watching over him.

So maybe, if Dean watched over Sam, the angels would watch over them both. John had no illusions about angels but that didn't mean Heaven wasn't a fair sight better than Hell.

He left his boys for the first time that year when Dean was six and Sam was two. He’d left them with Ellen and Bill at least. They knew the score and since they were trying for a kid of their own they said this would be a good practice run. John spent two months chasing every lead he could get, harrying at the demon’s flanks and sending every bastard he could catch back to their infernal pit.

Those early days he truly believed that he could kill the demon and give his boys at least the tail end of their childhood.

It worked to an extent. In two months there was only a single demon attack on the Roadhouse. Quite a bit better the the attempts he’d been fending off every week or so, but there had been three of them, and Bill said he should probably go.

His boys were safer on the road in any case.

By the time Sammy was old enough to go to preschool John and Dean had a system. Dean was, in a way, his partner, at least in keeping Sam safe. John hadn't wanted to expose Dean to all this but what choice did he have? He needed the extra hands to keep his youngest safe. He’d never known how to handle kids in any case, not without Mary to show him how. So he treated Dean as if he was older, and Dean was proud of it, willingly giving up his childhood just because his father had asked.

When had he become larger than life in his son's eyes? Did all fathers experience this moment and the fear that was flooding him? Fear of letting down those wide green eyes, of breaking his promise, and not coming back?

John pushed himself harder. He had to. As long as the demon was out there the apocalypse still loomed in his son's future. He had to protect his boys, they were all he had left. And it wasn't like anyone else could kill yellow eyes.

Every year the boys grew a little more, and John got a little more desperate. He left Dean to watch over Sam for longer stretches, each time hoping this would be the last.

The boys cared for each other more than he ever could. At least there was that. Dean lived for Sam and Sam adored Dean, looked at him as if he hung the stars every night. It made them stronger. They knew there would always be someone there watching their back. It was them against the world.

John hadn't meant for it to happen but when he realized that they would do anything for each other, he was happy. It meant that even if he failed they had a chance, slim as it was. He was the only sticking point.

Dean followed orders because he knew it was all to protect him and Sam. Even then he’d bend the rules if he thought it would be better for his little brother.  He understands the spirit of it.

Sam doesn't.

John’s always been careful with how much Sam learns (and Dean because what one of them knows the other will soon learn.) John knows the knowledge of his tainted blood could break Sam. Sam’s always felt different and at least he thinks it’s because they move around and hunt monsters and live in hotel rooms. At least he doesn't think there’s anything wrong with him that John isn't responsible for. John can take the blame. He can deal with the rebellion and the guilt and the times Sam drives him to shout.

He knows exactly how much worse it could be.

When he’s down at the bottom of a bottle and wondering if Mary’s deal meant she’s in Hell even though it wasn't for her soul, he see’s Sam’s face with black or yellow eyes and wonders what he’s even trying to do anymore.

It’s been years and every time he’s gotten close that bastard has slipped through his fingers. Still what can he do but press on. At this point he doesn't know how else to live, and he’s too stubborn and greedy to let go of his boys now.

Then he learns about Adam. Even as he visits his third son and celebrates a part of him admits defeat. Michael has apparently been paying closer attention than John had hoped. Even if Dean won’t kill Sam, and at this point John is confident of that fact at least, Michael will still have options.

It’s less than two months later that things come to a head and Sam turns his back on them. He’s going off to college where he’ll be completely unprotected. Where the demons will be able to slip into every facet of his life and turn him into whatever they want him to be. Hopefully he’ll prove to be as stubborn with them as he was with his father.

John almost hopes that Dean will go after him. His boys need each other, but no. Dean stays behind and sinks into the hunter life that is all he knows.

By that point the lie, that he’s going after Yellow eyes for Mary ( and not for Sam and Dean, not to stop the end of the world ) has been told so many times he almost believes it. With his children gone there’s nothing else for him to live for. Dean is just as gone as Sam even if they still see each other. He’s got the impala now and nightly calls have quickly become weekly calls. They still check in when on a hunt, to make sure the other’s still alive but they’re not a family anymore, not in the way they should have been.

The woman in white should have been a simple case. He had it all figured out when the demon reared it’s ugly head in the next town over. It was so close, all the signs were there, and it wasn’t like Constance would go anywhere. He didn’t realize he was in Stanford until he was already there. Then the omens had vanished and he’d been lost wandering in circles. With frustrations building on anger he returned to his case.

Only to find Dean was busy solving it...with Sam.

John checked his phone and found it had been dead for at least three days. The messages from Dean had gone from nervous to frantic, settling on determined as he pulled his brother back into the life.

And Sam, Sam looked good. He stood with his back straight and his eyes clear. God, he was studying to become a lawyer. John’s son, a lawyer. All of John’s fears, everything that could have happened when Sam left the carefully constructed defenses John had built, And Sam was alright.

Thank god for Dean. That instinct to protect his brother would save them all. Dean looked better too. After years of reckless hunts, any warm body who would have him and too much drink for even a young man like him, Dean had finally found his feet again. And of course it would be with his brother at his back. Dean was such a good boy, he’d done everything John ever asked of him. Loyal to a fault and as stubborn as his old man. He deserved to be happy.

John could have stepped out of the shadows, but he wanted to give his boys this. Just a little longer. He’d call Dean when Sam went back to Stanford. They’d all go back to their lives and this might be the one good memory they had to look back on when it all went to hell.

He tailed the impala long enough to see Jess, Sam’s beautiful fiance, burn like Mary had.

Dean got Sam out again, then there were the authorities. John could sympathize, but rather than show himself now, he threw himself back into the chase. He should have paid more attention to the omens. Could he have prevented this if he’d been a little faster, a little smarter? And Sam had paid the price yet again.

The Demon led him a merry chase, but with every encounter John had a sense he was getting closer. Both he and his quarry were running out of time, and in a way, that played in John’s favor. The Yellow Eyed bastard couldn't just vanish for months at a time any more. Of course, now he was being hunted as well, and not just by the demons.

Sam and Dean were chasing him, and as much as he wanted to see them, he’d gone to far down this road. He saved every message that Dean left for him, and pointed his boys at hunts when they got too close.

Then there was the demon Meg. She was close to Azazel somehow and powerful in her own right. They fought together, side by side like family. Sam still had his grievances to lay at John’s feet but he seemed to understand a bit better.

Tragedy is a hard teacher and with Jess gone he could understand part of what john went through.

They won, even if it was hard fought, but the battle hammered in one harsh truth: together they were each others weaknesses. Too easily followed, tracked, tricked. John’s boys trusted each other. they were partners. He was the third wheel now.  Plus he has a lead on the Colt, a weapon that might just be able to end this fight.

He was so close, he could taste it. Omens were sprouting like wildfire and he finally had the Demon in his sights. So of course it’s a trap. He was knocked out, then there was something else in his mind, and no matter how he fought he couldn't force it out.

Azazel torments him with flashes of his boys. The demon put him on like a cheap suit it nearly works. Dean, his amazing boy, figures it out. It was enough to shake the demon’s composure and John fought to wrestle back control. He had been possessed by more impressive things then this bastard.

Sam had the colt.

John was more than willing to die if it means saving his boys from the end of the world. But Sam didn't take the kill shot. The war goes on.

The impala was totaled. Dean was barely holding on. They were done.

The first seal is a member of Michael’s line spilling blood in hell. That’s him or Dean. Dean, his firstborn, his cunning, fierce, beautiful boy. No. John wont let them have him. And he knows they would find a way. If Dean dies now not only would it break Sam and himself, it would break the whole world.

It isn't even really a choice by that point. The demon is smug with his victory. This is the fall of John Winchester, or maybe the whole thing has been his fall.

He’s strapped to a wrack, and he doesn't stop himself from screaming. There’s only one thing he holds onto. His boys are alive, and as long as he holds out, they’ll stay safe. He doesn't count the years, but he knows it has to have been a lifetime before a crack in the world opens.

It’s a chance none of them should have gotten and all of them try to take, souls and demons alike.

John sees the graveyard, sees the yellow eyed demon and Dan with the Colt. Sam is there, and his eyes are clear, untainted by demon black. It’s over. It’s finally over. His enemy is dead. His boys are safe. John smiles and lets himself rest.


End file.
